A Liberal Bishop on the front lines

The Rt. Rev. Greg Rickel, blogging from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, sums up a week of sharp change by saying Episcopalians will be “revisioning our future and what it is to be the Church in this day and time.”

Rickel and the assisting bishop in the Western Washington diocese, the Rt. Rev. Nedi Rivera, both supported a resolution that opens election of Episcopal bishops to gays and lesbians.

The convention, held in Anaheim, has taken a path different from many other branches of the 77-million member Anglican Communion, by embracing those in same-sex relationships.

In so doing, it ignored an appeal from the Rt. Rev. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that the worldwide communion could be put “in grave peril.”

The church’s 2003 General Convention ratified the election of the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, a non-celibate gay, as the Bishop of New Hampshire. The election produced a storm of controversy.

In response, the 2006 General Convention passed resolution B033, which called on the Episcopal Church to “exercise restraint in moving persons whose manner of life” raised objection from consideration in elections for bishop.

As he worked on a resolution at this year’s convention, wrote Rickel, “I must admit that I had in my mind B033 and the great pain and anger that has existed for many these entire last three years about how that came in the last moment, and how it drove the Church in so many different directions since.”

The direction set down by the 2009 General Convention seems clear.
Both bishops and lay delegates approved a resolution that recognizes “gays and lesbians in lifelong committed relations.”

It continues: “God has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church.”

On Thursday, bishops voted to start developing rites for blessing same-sex marriages and giving a green light to bishops that have already done so.

The Diocese of Olympia is a liberal bastion: Rickel welcomed Bishop Robinson during a Seattle preaching stop in January. St. Mark’s Cathedral had, for nearly a decade, an openly gay, non-celibate dean. The cathedral, and other diocesan churches, do blessing services for same-sex couples.

Yet, like a majority of dioceses in America, the church in Western Washington has lost members — even as the region’s population has grown — while a majority of congregations have suffered declining revenue.

Rickel, in a blog on Wednesday, anticipated that the latest General Convention actions will cause some pain.
“It does not go back to B033, but instead looks forward,” he said of the resolution adopted.

“Several things are important to me here. First, I think it is time for this Church to be
honest about where it finds itself now. Second, it must acknowledge that not everyone is in that same place, in fact there are many and varied places people find themselves in this debate.

“Third, this resolution does, in fact, open up access once again to gay and lesbian people, to the discernment process for the episcopate. To interpret this any other way would be dishonest.”

Four dioceses have formally withdrawn from the Episcopal Church in recent months. So have such big congregations as Truro Church and The Falls Church in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

The traditionalist defectors have called themselves the Anglican Church in North America. They will possibly seek recognition as a formal, independent branch of the Anglican Communion.

In Western Washington, two small congregations — St. Charles in Poulsbo and St. Stephen’s in Oak Harbor — have severed ties. A portion of the congregation at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Bellingham have also departed.

Legal battles over church property have broken out between diocesan bishops and dissident parishes, and between the national Episcopal Church and the departing dioceses.

Even Bishop Robinson, in a New York Times interview, acknowledged that conservative Episcopalians were feeling railroaded and excluded with passage of the latest resolution.

Rickel, installed in the fall of 2007, has revitalized the Western Washington diocese and given it a high-profile presence in the national church.

At this year’s convention, he nspoke at a ceremony honoring the Rt. Rev. Edmond Browning, who retired as Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church three years ago. (Browning was observed, late in his tenure, attending mass and taking communion at a
Catholic Church.)

In honoring Browning, Rickel noted that General Conventions have lately made fast, difficult decisions that have generated controversy and national publicity.

“I suggested that the emerging leadership in the church will have to change this, will have to help us find the ‘third’ way,” he wrote. “I suggested that they will often be seen as foollish, but God needs some holy fools if this will change.”